Aerendel Magazine Reprints

“History”

(This is one of the first poems I saw of Jim’s and I was impressed, I’m not sure we ever included it in any of our hard copy editions, it was a bear to try to format then and it’s worse in html….)

———djo——

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History

Walk the northern summer
above an angry sea
lean out over the rocks
your hair flowing regal
your sweater almost forgotten
as the chill can’t touch you now
you’re dreaming
of blond and bearded warriors
laughing drunk
bragging of their adventures
to claim long awaited pleasures
from wild eyed women
spirits high and willing to wrestle
long hours, days of loneliness, over

Viking Princess
your line disinherited
by ancient enemies
long before the twentieth century
revealed madness to the world’s eyes
fires burn within you
you’re hungry for things
you only feel
through fuzzy memories
no man can free you from your questions
But what of this country
this wind swept afternoon
are they not yours to love
doesn’t that lift your spirit

too long without a lover

to help them celebrate this life

to comfort your ghost filled nights

float languid above, away
find a reason not to see
stand with your heart impaled
the smoke behind your mind
moves in ever tighter circles
reach for meaning ( for power and riches? )
stretch to own the sky
call that cosmic consciousness?
curse the devil
he’s you when you keep your heart and mind closed
don’t blame me for your losses

You’ve been looking in the wrong direction

you know love can go stagnant
turn to greed
when you try to keep it
all to yourself
when you value being loved
more than loving
You can’t own anyone
you may only know yourself
but you’ve been through a lot
and that breeds understanding
and understanding can
stop a war before the shooting starts
open your heart
someone will touch you
something will free you

live in the moment
turn your heart
to the sun

I’ll love you
in spite of your efforts
to block out the happiness
you feel too guilty
to accept.

…..Jim Wellington ….( circa 1971? )

Let’s see if I can format this for Jim…
Sunday, July 27, 2014, 11:11 p.m.
—(trying to format poetry that was meant to have a visual impact as well as two voices that trade off- & I don’t think it worked here. I put it up in “Radio Free Earth News” and it worked there okay, here the tables I had to use are visibly outlined. I may have to edit that out in the settings…)
—(5:18 a.m. Monday, July 28, 2014: I edited the boxy stuff out of visual range by changing settings in the appearance/mantra settings area of the dashboard. Now it indents the first line in each table cell. —Um, I suppose it could be worse…)
—(5:34 a.m. Monday, July 28, 2014: The line spacing isn’t working right. But like I said in the previous edit note, it could be worse. When Jim wakes up he’ll probably say it’s okay to leave this as is. —Or— We can put this together in DreamWeaver, take a screen shot and upload that as the poem?) (Check back later… ?)

((( We’ve been much better at posting this stuff at Radio Free Earth News than we have about copying it here. )))

((( I should add a run-down about who posted what & when, but I’m not sure we have that information when it is posted / added to a ‘page’ and not posted on the ‘posts’ page, where internal editing stuff keeps track of when something was posted. )))

{ Jim posted most of the following, I think, and complained about what a pain in the ‘dupah’ it was to keep the formatting right in a couple things: }

Lost or Found?

I’m frightened now no hand-me-down vision can help me close my eyes in any calm comfortable happy or safe world

part of me has grown to search beyond your limits for things you never knew we needed dj otterson (4-7-82)

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YOU NEVER LEARNED (or: Is This cinematic accuracy?){ Did they jail Columbus for treating ‘lowly natives’ almost as if they were equal to Spaniards (of ‘Noble Blood’) ? It appears the ‘powerful’ will always seek to destroy discredit and condemn to anonymity or public shame anyone whose ideas conflict with (and thereby threaten?) their ownI do not contest the notion that the (man) commissioned by Isabella had his flaws, neither do I argue this world is any better or worse than it might be had the Europeans never ‘discovered’ this un-lost continent they later renamed ‘America’ (unlike you I know I don’t have ‘God-like’ understanding of this mysterious and beautiful universe-)I do believe I had ancestors here before ol’ Christoforo argued the ’roundness’ of this sphere But- }“You never learned to speak my language yet demand perfection from my mastery of yours You say you believe in freedom and equality but, do you perceive ‘Nobility’? in the form of a selected few whose reflections remind you most nearly of your own image? dj otterson 30 june 1997

(more later, I have to go do something in the ‘real world’—–Jim)

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{{{ Adding to “Copied and Pasted from a Friend’s Site Because he asked me to save a copy of a poem I’d Liked” : }}

{{{{{ Aerendel Magazine was founded online by a friend I met in Ithaca, and refuses to fade away completely. Last weekend the founder emptied a storage unit his niece filled with stuff that had been stored in her step father’s barn after her step father set his home on fire and blew his own brains out, never quite got over the cancer death of his long time spouse. Going through the stuff in the storage unit, the magazine’s founder discovered stuff he’d written way the bleep back in the sixties, seventies, eighties an nineties. He believes some of it might be worth reading. }}}}}

I’ve seen you reaching
to understand the feelings
of everyone around you,
like you thoughts yours didn’t matter,
you remind me
of the things I like best in people

People; we’ve known our share
(pass the wine friend)
we know that our heaviest burden
is that we care
too much for things
that never give us a second thought,
we’re soldiers in a war
to bring love to our friends
who fear it the most

have to admit it though,
we sure know how to live,
if livin is losin,
if livin is losin your soul
twenty times a day
(tied off with a crumpled bow
and tossed) at the feet of the living
whose dreams are bound to die
before their time

they’ll be back, Tom, the people
when their losing
brings them to the questions
we gave them answers for
when they were too young to ask,
when their breasts were new
and full of energy,
full of idealism
that told them
the world was theirs

they’ll drag their heals
and feel their tears
and wonder about dying,
the way we did,
before we saw them ready to fall
before we were ready
to fight all manner of gods
for their happieness,
to strain every muscle
in our hearts
to keep them from crying

pass the wine, Tom,
the waiting is on us,
empty as a corpse.

Jim Wellington (1971)

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(( I came home from work one morning, to an empty house. All my “hippy friends” and house mates had gotten up early to zoom off to New Haven to the farmers’ market.

I’d had a rough couple days, with a new friend named Richie, whose parents had kicked him out of their house- he’d scored some really bad acid and spent a couple hours puking his brains out in our reassuring bathroom.

-And a fifteen year old girl had wondered into the house, wide eyed and helpless, looking like somebody’s perfect daughter, flawless skin, beautiful eyes, thin young body wearing bell bottoms and soft suede shoes, a tight tee shirt of brown textured material with a wide cut between her hinted at breasts- the tee shirt held closed by criss crossed shoe laced leather. Long straight dark hair, innocent brown eyes. She was just barely hanging on to her sanity after some idiot had given her a first taste of Lysergic Acid Diethalimide .25 and she was calmly trying not to explode into millions of fragments that might never come back together right. I managed to let he know we believed she mattered, she was a wonderful human being with better than infinite potential. She wanted to hold my hands and look into my eyes and absorb that truth and feel really good about herself and the universe that was coming together to save her from her parents’ particular form of insanity. But that inrush of truth and beauty and hope and love threatened to explode her again. I think, somehow, I said something that had her laughing with joy and launched her bad trip into a much better field of exploration.

And I had to go to work in the midst of all this, leave Annie surrounded by friends I trusted to stand back and stand guard to make sure she was safe and happy and learning as much positive information as possible without exploding all over the place… (a poster of Jimi Hendrix turned and looked at her and said, “What are you doing? … What did I do?…” ) And Richie from Long Island finished puking his brains out and sat around for a while staring at a very frightening panorama of monstrous faces forming the air around him and later asked for a ride to the emergency room, and he survived- ((( a couple days later he was playing his guitar and teaching me licks from Pink Floyd and Jefferson Airplane… )))

-But I was freakin drained, dealing with long haul truck drivers who told me my beard looked like their girl friend’s private parts, and the clerk work at the trucking company office kept coming and never gave me a chance to sit down and catch my breath.

-So I came home to our hippy beach house and put on my newish copy of Tom Rush- the album that starts with Driving Wheel. And I cranked it a little louder than I would if anybody was sleeping upstairs or on the couch or passed out half hugging the washing machine… life was that kind of an adventure….

And I fried myself a couple brown eggs and got the toaster to work and found enough coffee left in the pot to bring it all together into one of the better breakfasts I’d tried to cook myself…

And I sat down in the living room (in the mix-matched furniture that only looked right in a rented beach house)

And the music filled the universe with magic- every note relaxed and soothed another part of me that I hadn’t realized was on fire. And Tom’s voice was the soul of compassion and I could see the old man with white hair sitting on a park bench, looking through fading eyes at a world worth loving, and I wanted to get up and dance to stuff my momma would have warned me I better not dance to, all night long. and I wanted to drop my guard and feel the pain of crazy people who had a lot more to offer than I’d ever realized.

Star Children from the other side of the universe were coming to earth and infiltrating our wild and crazy hippy get togethers and donating secret bits of love and wisdom and compassion and hope. And they were using unassuming genius folk singers to help them spread their message.

I had to sit down and write the above poem, straining to feel and find the words that fit together just right

I typed up two copies and gave one to Annie (the fifteen year old hope of my lost tribe’s wildest uncontrollable generation) She kept a crumpled up copy with her and read it read many times after being used and abused by flower children and people who hated flower children. She went to a Tom Rush concert because of that poem and loved every second of it.

And I thought I lost my last copy of that typewritten poem but found it yesterday in a stinkin mildew and mold ridden mess in a storage unit a family member had filled with stuff that my brother in law had not burned when he set his house and fire and blew his brains out, never getting over the loss of my sister to cancer….

And the original is inside a plastic page protector and this copy will be saved on five or six hard drives and on the web in at least three sites.

Yeah, life is still worth living. Even if the only wine I want is the spiritual kind that warms you to the core of our universal soul and spirit.

I’ve seen a lot of green things lately
growing, trimmed to fit a grasping
need to feel our power over life
and cars still speed past my window
in a hurry to get to somewhere
they’ll probably wish they weren’t
yet their noises sometimes call me
to follow as far as your door.

Don’t ask me how I feel
I’ll tell you, whenever something touches me
or reaches for my eyes or mind
some complicated network
made of things like telephone lines
somehow pulls impressions
to a place where they’re measured and
set in line with things that have
happened
before.

Don’t ask what turns me on
the music that once filled me
echoes of small ideas and wasted energy
though I’m sick of reacting to things
I can’t control
I’m lazy and lagging
I want to start something
that makes sense
beyond all this
but I’m tired.

Don’t ask me what I want
I’m afraid to tell you
someone with soft hair
whose eyes I wouldn’t push
away from my mind, leaves
an image that won’t let me think
to the time I’ll stop my dreaming.

Don’t ask me what I’ve found
I’ll skip over the rulers of darkness
and light
and mathematical formulas
that can teach you why
the Earth moves and grass grows
and forty thousand people a year
have to die in cars;

And I’d tell you
I’ve learned that I need her
Her!
and daily look for reasons
to make her laugh
which set aside
fears that keep my hand
from reaching for hers.

Jim Wellington (4th try, August 24, 1971)

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Swapping Old Poems

I think the following is actually the first poem that I’d written that Doug ever saw. (it was not quite all the way out of the typewriter when Doug stumbled onto it.) (I hardly ever left stuff lying around like that where just any weirdo (( who would have had to been let in, or broken in, or invited – in this case )) could happen to glance the wrong way and realize I wrote poetry now and then. Most of the guys I worked with in those days would have respected the hell out of a porn writer, but would have stepped a couple steps back and wondered how far they were from the nearest door if they know I wasn’t afraid to write poetry.)

“Grey-Hounded”

Evening
from a bus
sunset
and its many meanings
(armies of idiots smiling
blank
at something they know
but couldn’t understand)
while many of our good ford’s cars
string home with
how many
telephone wires for guides
to how many
finite kitchens
dining rooms and
smiling drunk barbecues and
back yards full of screaming kids and
“EXIT 4 THREE MILES”
wives who love
“ONE WAY”
or nag, depending
“GO RIGHT”
on how long
“JUNCTION HWY 1 SOUTH”
their marriage has lasted
“NEXT EXIT 2 MILES”

—————Jim Wellington (1970)

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I had typed this on my old electric (suitcase model) portable typewriter. I don’t remember the make or model, but I do remember it was light blue in colour.

Both Doug and I were feeling dumped by our ‘significant others’ (but I had no idea at that time, that he’d been married and forgot something on his way to work, came home to get it and caught his wife ((Now ex-wife)) emptying their house and about to run off “with a van full of crazies from some whacko California Evangelic Christian Commune” with their daughter in tow. Doug, a security guard with a license to carry firearms, was in uniform with the gun on his hip and the crazies took off in a hurry. His wife ran out the back door and across a couple neighbours’ back yards and jumped in the van and left the baby in her car seat on the kitchen table.) So Doug’s suffering was a whole lot deeper and more profound than mine at the time. I hadn’t had a clue.

I also didn’t realize he’d read the piece of paper in the typewriter until a couple days later when he handed me one of his poems (and swore me to secrecy, the company he worked for might not trust a gun toting poet to guard their clients in those days ((1991-ish?)) )

—————Jim

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I think this might be a song I tried to write on a piece of cardboard that came inside a new shirt. ———Jim——

—–>

“To a Waterfall“

You kept my love alive—

Sometimes the slightest thought of you Could tear my crazy soul in two When I’m — too far gone to cry

But you You kept my love alive You you kept my love alive

I saw you in another time when I was lost inside my mind you shook me to my hidden roots and on that day my love came loose—

Ah you— you kept my soul alive you you kept my love alive

The night sails away and time flashes free then the world of man took it all from me my dreams all died the world went mad I tried to believe I was all I had

But you- you kept my soul alive you you kept my love alive

I found my wings I loved the sky alone I flew I thought I knew why

From time to time I looked your way I felt your tears and flew away

The higher I flew the deeper I went the more I knew I was nowhere yet

I watched you stumble I watched you fall You screamed in the night I heard it all

And you- you held my fire for me- you— you kept my love— alive—

I stood in the wind I heard life begin I watched through the rain closed my eyes to pain

And you— you kept my soul alive You— you kept my love— alive—

a million years fall away in an instant and all the earth opens to my heart one word rushes in like a flood from a trumpet I see life end —and start—- Again

And you- You kept my soul alive You you kept my dreams alive

I knew you from a timeless dream I didn’t know what you would mean to me I asked the sky what everything means -saw the universe die in one violent scream

And you- you kept my love- alive You- you taught my soul to survive

Out here where there’s no life to be seen you die in your own ashes or live your own dream the dreams you resurrected led me straight to you I don’t have to tell you that I didn’t know what to do-

But you— you kept my soul alive you- you kept my love alive

and me— I was running from day to day feeling empty and starved I turned to you in the dark – no one there I closed my eyes and I saw you smile

On the edge of a cliff I took the plunge through life and the cold past caution and fear to the bottom of the lake with no hope of ever reaching fresh air…. But I rose somehow and I saw you there

And you you laughed my soul Awake You— You kept my love alive

You needed me you know I needed you and, no- we were both afraid of fear we were terrified of love

but you you took my hand and cried and you- you brought my love to life-

and where? from deep inside you where? When you life was hell from where did you find the strength to try in a world so ungrateful why? cast your lot with the dying? why do we keep on trying? why when everyone’s lying– why did you look at me and smile?

You might have saved both our lives with that smile-

Times haven’t changed they’re getting worse you ask for a blessing they give you a curse all these lost crazy humans we’re all dying of thirst and your brought them your water and a smile full of grace and the way that they thanked you was a slap in the face

But you- you kept my dreams alive you- you kept my love alive

I hear you crying once again in a dream your soul is on fire and your mind wants to scream your wings are unfolding there’s a light in your eyes and I know you are ready for the view from the sky

……….Jim Wellington (duh- I think I started trying to write this in the early 70’s and wrote it out in this form on that piece of shirt cardboard around 1989.)

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{ This was the last of what was uploaded, copied here from Radio Free Earth News on Saturday, August 2, 2014 -8:37 pm EDST ———djo——— }